microsoft acquires dundas technology for sql server 2008

"Dundas is the charting technology of Reporting Services"

ORLANDO, FL (June 4, 2007) - Dundas Data Visualization, a leader in the advanced data visualization market, today announced Microsoft Corp. has acquired Dundas's data visualization technology, which will be part of the final feature set for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services.

The Dundas products to be incorporated into SQL Server 2008 include Dundas Chart for Reporting Services, Dundas Gauge for Reporting Services and Dundas Calendar for Reporting Services. The announcement comes from Bob Muglia, Microsoft's Senior Vice President, Server and Tools Business, during his keynote address at today's Tech•Ed conference.

"Dundas is now the charting technology of Reporting Services," said Troy Marchand, President of Dundas Data Visualization. "We're delighted and proud that Microsoft has chosen Dundas's intellectual property as a critical part of their SQL Server 2008 plans."

Marchand stressed that Dundas's current and new customers can benefit from this arrangement immediately, as Dundas will continue to sell and fully support the Reporting Services products for "quite some time." In addition, current users of Dundas's Reporting Services technology have a straightforward migration path to SQL Server 2008, which ensures today's work will be usable in the future.

"By working with Dundas technologies today, customers can take full advantage of the upcoming data visualization capabilities that will be part of SQL Server 2008," he explained. "Migration of reports using Dundas components to SQL Server 2008 will be seamless, so work done today can be easily reused after release. In other words, customers who use the products now can get up to speed with them in preparation for the next version of SQL Server."

SQL Server 2008, which will be released next year, is a complete enterprise-class offering that builds upon the success of SQL Server 2005 and delivers increased functionality to a comprehensive range of applications from the desktop to the data center.

Tech•Ed 2007 is the premier annual conference for Microsoft's IT professionals and developers. Running June 4-8 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, Tech•Ed 2007 provides technical training, information and resources to the Microsoft community.

微软的BI产品中,对前端展现方案一直是依赖于第三方解决方案.直到后来MOSS2007以及Office2007的相关方案的发布,多少算是弥补了这一空白.不过MOSS2007暂时对国内的用户作为BI展现方案实施起来在一段时间内可能还会有一些难度,而Office2007到目前为止还没有听哪位朋友说尝试过.不过从微软最近的活动中多少能看到一些趋势和方向.

另外还有一点就是微软把普科收购后,好像一直没有什么动静.关于这个问题曾联系过普科当初在国内的销售总代理,就连他们现在也没有接到微软的通知说该产品要如何销售,而且在BI解决方案中也不提普科了,就连普科早先的官方网站上试用的链接只有桌面版,微软的朋友都无法透露普科目前在微软的开发计划是如何.

所以,看到dundas这个新闻的时候感觉真的是挺诧异的,不过也是一个好消息.从这个这个新闻中的描述来看,被集成的产品主要有:

Dundas Chart for Reporting Services
Dundas Gauge for Reporting Services
Dundas Calendar for Reporting Services

另外在新闻中似乎没有提及关于Sharepoint和仪表板的支持.在Dundas的BI方案中其实还有一个比较实用的,Dundas OLAP.这个工具曾关注了好久,只是目前的版本上还不支持Drill to Detail.不晓得在未来的本版中是否会把这个功能补充进去.不过在未来的版本中很有可能把对于Sharepoint,仪表板以及Analysis Service的支持都加进去,因为看到网站上关于RS的新闻,自然很容易会有这样的猜测.

到目前为止还没有看到SQLServer2008在BI上的新特性,毕竟离正式版本的发布还要有一段时间,不过个人认为还是有更多的新特性值得期待的,同时也希望微软在新版本的Sqlserver中能把以前版本中存在的问题都予以解决,同时在数据的处理上有本质的飞跃.

最后,关于dundas与microsoft的这次"合作",媒体上还没有找到其"方式".如果微软是把dundas收购了的话那就自然不用说了,如果不是的话,那么以后很难说dundas的方向,有可能是像当初的水晶报表一样的方式(下场?).